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The Crucial Three: the babies Turner, Matrullo and O'Connor Clarke.

Thursday, February 06, 2003

Best Ruairi news yet

He's coming home!

After settling in to the strange cycle of the last couple of weeks, we're thrilled and relieved to know that Ruairi is now definitely well enough to be almost ready to come home. If everything goes as planned, he should get his last dose of the antibiotics tomorrow night around 8:00 and will be ready to come home about an hour after that.

He’s visibly, obviously better in so many ways. Active, comfortable, alert, smiley and eating like his Dad – weighed in at 11lb 1oz earlier today.

Life since last Tuesday has been extraordinarily strained and tiring; for him most of all, but also for all of the family. It really looks like we’ll be back to some semblance of normality by the weekend.

I don’t know how we would have coped without the loving support of so many friends – online and r/t. The messages of encouragement, the many meals cooked for us, the countless favours and offers of assistance – Sausage and I are just floored by it all. The typical daily schedule for this last week has been something like this:

– Up early with Charlie & Lily for breakfast.
– Lily either off to playschool or dropped with friends for a ‘play date’; Charlie either to the same or a different friend’s house (spreading the load).
– Me in to the hospital, bearing coffee and breakfast for Leona, to snatch some brief moments with our little man and give Sausage a chance to shower and relax for a while.
– Off to the office for a few hours of maintenance activity, trying to keep things rolling as well as possible.
– Back to hospital by around 2:30 to relieve Sausage for the afternoon shift. She – to school to collect Charlie (SK, so he’s only there in the afternoon), gathering in Lily from whichever friend’s house en route.
– Then (after their piano lessons or ballet or whatever) back to the hospital, complete with donated food from one of our wonderful friends for a family dinner in Ruairi’s drab, grey little room.
– C, L & I back home by 8:30; Leona settling down with Ruairi for a night on the thin hospital cot.
– C & L to bed; me back online – phone calls, email, writing, catching up on work till late at night.
– Repeat with small variations until no longer remotely funny.

The daft thing is – through all this enervating, weird time, I’ve still managed to keep the new baby sleep deprivation thing going at peak. Yet I’m the one who has been retiring to the big comfy bed every night, while poor Sausage worked the night shift in the hospital. No babies crying - no 3 o'clock feed to get up for, but do you think I could sleep? I've seen 04:00 tick past on the radio alarm just about every night in the last 2 weeks.

Tonight, I think, I’ll finally be able to get some balm for this hurt mind. Our little boy comes home tomorrow. Looks set to be a memorable weekend.

Not out of the woods yet, but Ruairi is definitely on the mend. He's still on antibiotics, but they've narrowed down the original cocktail to an e.coli specific drug now. He's definitely looking and acting happier every day, thank God.

More blood work, ultrasound, regular temperature, respiration and heart rate checks - so far everything's confirming the original diagnosis. As we caught it before it had a chance to really take hold, the doctors don't think there are likely to be any lasting complications. We have one extraordinarily tough, resilient little bruiser here.

His fever peaked again during the night, but it doesn't seem to have been a real issue - they took the latest round of blood just to try and confirm that the treatment really is working, and that they don't need to step up the dose or anything.

One moment of drama today, when his temperature flared up again and he started panting like crazy, his little heart hitting 180 bpm. I ran to fetch the nurse; by the time we came back his left arm had puffed up like a balloon around the IV site. Looks like the tube had either slipped out or his tiny vein had just collapsed.

Thankfully, it took a lot less time to get a new drip in this time around - he's not so dehydrated now, which makes it easier, I guess. Soon had a brand new IV in the other arm, and his temperature, pulse and respiration dropped back to normal. (Think my own pulse rate might be back down by some time next week).

Overall, though, today was a good day. He's awake a lot of the time, and feeding reasonably well - doesn't want to be put down, but that's just fine with me. Happy to hold him till my arms go numb - he just has to look up at me and I'll do anything he needs.

Settled in now for the next week of this. All our friends - online and realtime - have been simply astonishing. The support and care we're getting is terrific. Sausage's MomNet & book club mates have worked up a rota to cook hot meals for us every night. We've had prayers, emails, cards and kind words of encouragement from Toronto to Taiwan. I'm awed by the healing power of firm friends in hard times. Thank you, all of you.